Processing experience: the stippling work of Caleb Lewis

I started stippling as an extension of idle doodling and quickly fell for the meditative qualities and ethereal effect intrinsic to the percussive action. Initially I focused on recreating what was already there, copying from photographs or using several images to create a new scene. Over a period of time, my obsession with line started to invade my images, replacing ever greater portions of the original conception to form a different aesthetic. The battle between a mind predicated on realism and another on line is fought on the paper until a ceasefire is agreed. ~Caleb Lewis

Creating pictures is a way in which I can process my own experiences and ingrained anxiety; recording the highs, lows, hopes and fears using line and shape to carry the narrative in my own visual language. I’m looking for a distinct balance and stillness between the elements on the paper, as if millions of random dots coordinated to produce a briefly identifiable image, that hangs quietly in the air before disintegrating back into a random state.

Save for colour sections, the majority is completed in a combination of 0.03 and 0.05 liners on Saunders Waterford HP High White 638gsm or Daler Rowney heavyweight 220gsm.